Category Archives: SFF

As I mentioned in my previous post about my event at Kinokuniya KL last Saturday, Kino is the bookshop of my teenage years, because it was so huge and had what was at the time an unmatchable selection — not only of SFF, but YA/MG, manga, Asian literature, etc. etc. etc.

Then later a giant Borders or two opened closer to home in PJ, rendering the long trek to KLCC unnecessary, so my memories of Kino are really crystallised in time. It was nice to go back, especially as I got to admire the World SF table they’d kindly let me curate in person. (I didn’t put my own books on the list lah obviously. They added those themselves.)

To my left (your right) there used to be an excellent Japanese stationery section. I didn’t go there that often because I’d’ve spent all my money on books by the time I got there.

A closer look at the selection, from Nigerians in space through Paris in the wake of a magical war to Hitler as a PI!

As for the event itself, it was really fun! I’d planned to fill up one hour but ended up taking around two. It was nice of Kino not to chase us out!

Here’s me holding forth

I was really worried that people would do that Malaysian thing of being too shy to raise their hands, and then only creeping round to ask questions afterwards one-on-one. (I mean, I can raise my hand as one of the people who does this. Except I wouldn’t raise my hand, of course.) I even prepped a friend to keep the chat going if no one volunteered questions: “Ask me about law! I can tell them about EU directives!”

But fortunately everyone was awesome and there were lots of questions! Thanks to everyone who asked — you are my hero and I am eternally grateful.

The only specific thing I remember saying was my explanation of the importance of plot. It goes like this: I used to think I didn’t really care about plot as a reader, but I’ve since learnt a bit more about how stories are made, and I now think that plot is to story like bones are to a person you fancy. You might say, “I’m not attracted to people based on their bones, I’m really more interested in their personality or whether they have a full head of lush hair.” But if you met someone who had no bones, at all, whatsoever, you might rapidly reconsider how important bones are to their attractiveness.

Anyway, so I’m still trying to figure out the bones of story.

My Stormtrooper ring is so photogenic! Nowadays I pretend John Boyega is secretly inside it.

The highlight of the event for me was meeting readers, obvs, but a close runner-up is the fact that illustrator Charis Loke gave me what, as far as I know, is the first piece of fanart for Sorcerer to the Crown!

I love it. I am so happy.

A close-up:

There really is nothing like seeing the figments of your imagination being brought to life by another so sympathetically. I’m going to sleep with it under my pilloweat it so it becomes a part of me frame it and put it on my wall and admire it forever.

I also signed some stock for Kino, so if you missed the event you can still pick up an autographed copy there! If you’re not that fussed about autographed copies or a 20% discount on your second item (also available in-store), you can buy the books online: they stock the US hardcover and the trade paperback with the UK cover, both RM75.

Photos are by me, Daphne Lee, Aaron Lim and my BFF Maxine Lim, who combines with all other ideal qualities of a best friend that of taking only flattering pictures of me.

Description: It’ll depend on how Kino chooses to set it up and how many people attend, but my plan is to sign books and chat to people. I’ve called it a Q&A partly because maybe people do want to ask me questions about things, but mostly because the other natural thing to do is a reading. And I don’t really like doing readings. Nonetheless I may do one if it seems like the right thing to do. We’ll see!

Here’s the Facebook event page, in case you find Facebook event pages useful! It’s open to everyone so do come if you’re free and bring your friends.

I’m really looking forward to this! I spent many happy hours in Kinokuniya as a teenager, reading all the books they didn’t wrap and sitting on my hands to warm them (the air-con is always turned super high IIRC). When I told my parents I was doing this event they said: “Really, Kinokuniya? They’re going to let you in there, after all those books you read for free???”

But to be fair I’ve also spent a lot of money there over the years! What with this and the Forbidden Planet signing last year, I don’t know that I have many Personally Significant to Zen Book Places left to do events at. Maybe MPH at 1 Utama. And the Penang and KL children’s libraries!

As a nice plus, for me but also for anyone who turns up, the World SF table I curated for Kinokuniya will still be up in February. Features a selection of science fiction and fantasy books by authors from outside the US and UK. As you can see just from this picture alone, it includes books by Aliette de Bodard, Cindy Pon, Ken Liu, Nalo Hopkinson, Geoff Ryman and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, as well as lots more, including some homegrown Malaysian talent. It’s up now, so even if you’re not coming to see me in February you should go check it out!

Happy New Year! It’s been quiet on this blog lately as I’ve been absorbed in working on the follow-up to Sorcerer to the Crown and then took a complete break from writing over Christmas and New Year. It felt a bit alarming to be taking a rest with a deadline looming, but I think it was a good idea — there’s still a ton of work to be done, but I feel rejuvenated and much more capable of tackling it. I’ll probably stay pretty quiet till the book has been turned in, but here are some recent bits and bobs:

In December I was on a panel discussing science fiction and social justice with Daniel Jose Older, Walidah Imarisha and Mark Oshiro for Al Jazeera’s The Stream, an online daily TV show: Sci-fi for social change. First time I’ve done a panel via Skype!

Speaking of panels and diversity, I’ll be participating in Bare Lit Festival, the first UK literary festival focusing on authors of colour, run by Media Diversified. It’s taking place in February 2016 and I’m really looking forward to it. They’re fundraising to cover costs at the moment — do consider chipping in if it sounds like a worthwhile project to you: Bare Lit Festival fundraiser.

And my brother We Jun’s short film Coaster is out! It’s sponsored by Tiger Beer, who got people to send in story ideas on beer coasters — and picked the cast and crew based on coaster submissions! The film is a stylish, atmospheric story of revenge. It’s 15 minutes long and you can watch it on YouTube:

Date and time: Saturday, 7 November 2015, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pmVenue:Book and Kitchen, 31 All Saints Road, Notting Hill, London W11 1HEDescription:Science fiction authors, editors and publishers will discuss the ways in which Western ideals and narratives dominated the genre for decades, and how that is now being challenged.

They will delve into contemporary SF publishing’s obsession with Hollywood formulas and traditional Western tropes, and show how the micro-, small- and mid-sized presses are working to produce something different. The panel will look back at the challenge posed to SF by the New Wave of the mid 1960s to 1970s, much of it based in Ladbroke Grove. They will also offer ideas and solicit suggestions on how readers – and the genre – might be “retrained”.

I will candidly say now that I have no idea what was going on in Ladbroke Grove in the 1960s to 1970s, but I’m sure the other panellists do! It should be a fun discussion. I haven’t included the webpage’s list of panellists because they’ve changed since the page was last updated, but the others are Stephanie Saulter, Tade Thompson, Bill Campbell and Geoff Ryman, with Chair of the British Science Fiction Association Donna Bond as the moderator.

On Thursday I went to Broadcasting House (!) to take part in the first episode of Late Night Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4, which was on women in fandom. It was super fun — like a convention panel, only you had to keep remembering you were talking to a mainstream audience and stopping to define terms like “fanfic”. If you’re interested in listening to a lively discussion of women in SFF, the geek culture wars and fanfic tropes, you can download the podcast here:

(And yes, we did discuss A/B/O on national radio with all our relatives listening. /o\ I confess I’m one of those old fandom grumps for whom A/B/O does nothing. In my day we had “we are spies who have to pretend to be married for implausible reasons and we fall in love as a result” and we were happy with that!!)

I also did a podcast with the fabulous Fran Wilde (Updraft out super soon!) and Aliette de Bodard (House of Shattered Wings out even sooner!), talking about food in our books:

At the link I also reveal ~all my writing secrets~ and share my Big List o’ Regency Foods. I said this on the podcast, but I felt a bit like Sherlock Holmes explaining my methods and Watson going, “Oh, you’re nothing to call home about really, that’s easy!” Sigh. Anyway, if you’d like to know what “ruffs and reeves” are, go check it out!

Ghost words

I’ve been posting quietly to Where Ghost Words Dwell, the discarded writing collage project I do with a bunch of cool writers. Here are two of my most recent contributions:

Magical relatives berbalas pantun. This is from a story I was bouncing around with a friend a few years ago, inspired by our trip to Ladakh. The photo is of the glorious mountains, taken at Leh airport. It’s not at all a habitat that suits me — I spent the next seven days or so in the most wretched altitude sickness — but I’ve never seen anything like it.

Again, a snippet inspired by a holiday — this time a rather more prosaic one, a road trip in Kelantan with my BFF. We went to lots of wats and failed to eat any roti hamlet, laksam or nasi kerabu. (I know, I know … what were we even doing.) Eventually this inspired a short story called Everything Under One Roof, which Rose Lemberg accepted for her anthology Alphabet of Embers. The word count for Alphabet of Embers was 1,400 words so I had to cut everything non-essential, including the snippet at the link!

The drawing of a hipste Kelate is by my phenomenally talented cousin Alina Choong and is posted with her permission. It’s based on the boss of Kopitiam Kita, which you should definitely visit if you’re ever in KB. Siti Nurhaliza went also k.

Sorcerer to the Crown

Ala, you knew it was coming.

If you’re in the UK, first edition bookshop Goldsboro Books is running a competition for people who pre-order Sorcerer to the Crown! Order Goldsboro’s special limited edition (SPRAYED EDGES!) before 10 September, i.e. the UK release date, and you’ll have a chance to win an invitation to the book launch. Come and talk to meee! You can pre-order the limited edition here.

I also did a guest post for Pornokitsch on Five Fictional Girls and Women I Will Love Forever. Features Anne of Green Gables, Rukia, Lucy Snowe, Elizabeth Bennet and Eowyn. No surprises, but lots of *___*-ing … you will point out that this doesn’t have anything to do with Sorcerer to the Crown, because it’s part of The Apex Book of World SF 4 promo push, but little do you know! One of those five characters inspired Prunella Gentleman. You should tell me which you think it is!

As always, if you’re interested in receiving updates on my stuff in real-time, Twitter or Facebook is probably your best bet. My Facebook page is public and I don’t add back automatically, but will if you drop me a message saying hi. I’ve also started using Instagram! Not a lot there at the moment, but what I’m going to do is post pictures there instead of Twitter. I crosspost Instagram posts to Twitter and Facebook, though, so better not follow me on all three — after lemas only.

The guest of honor is usually a non-best selling but really interesting author

The program is a single track with a 50/50 mix of silly and really serious

The program is very relaxed, with long pauses between some program items to allow members to sit in the bar or explore Mariehamn (and rest of Åland)

Only 100 memberships are sold, then we’re full

Everything is in English

I feel I can say without conceit that I am perfect for a convention billing itself as a relaxacon, given my policy on naps. And I am very excited about following in the footsteps of two of my favourite living SFF authors, Karen Lord and Geoff Ryman, among others. \o/ And I have already done a sterling job by introducing Teresa Teng to one of the conrunners. HAHA.

Nova Press

I backed the Nova Press fundraiser! Israeli editor Didi Chanoch is fundraising for a press to translate new and upcoming SFF into Hebrew and he’s already got an exciting list, including Wesley Chu’s The Lives of Tao and Max Gladstone’s Three Parts Dead. Naomi Novik’s Uprooted is a stretch goal! You should go back it too.

Other stuff

Today I received my first royalty report from Fixi involving royalties being paid to me! \o/ As I suspected before, the trend of SPIRITS ABROAD selling far more copies within Malaysia than outside it continues. No credit to me, it’s because Fixi is so good at making people want to take Instagram pictures of read Malaysian books.

And as I signed the contract today, I should probably announce this: we’ve sold German rights for SORCERER TO THE CROWN! Droemer Knaur will be publishing it in German. It’s my first foreign language rights deal and I am very excited.

Oh, now I’m on the subject of rights deals (oh my god I’m so bad at this timely announcement business), I should also mention that there are going to be audiobooks of SORCERER and its sequels. That is cool! SORCERER is due out from Recorded Books in September.

I’m going to be at SFF author/fan gathering Fantasy in the Court for the first time this year! It’s hosted by Goldsboro Books in association with Hodderscape. I’ve been to Goldsboro Books a couple of times now for book launches and have happy memories talking books with nice people over drinks. Hopefully this will be more of the same!

It’ll be my third Nine Worlds and I expect it’ll be as fun as ever. My elevator pitch for Nine Worlds is “it’s like Tumblr in real life”, which can elicit varied reactions. But the nice parts of Tumblr, really!

Friday, 7 August

“Waiter, you spilt some sci-fi in my fantasy”Commonwealth West, 3:15pm – 4:30pm (All of the Books)

It feels like every other week there’s a new sub-genre to better define fantasy, sci-fi or horror but are those genres still specific and how much do they bleed into each other? This panel will explore the crossing of genre boundaries.

The Fantasy Of White History – Race and racism in historically based fictionConnaught B, 6:45pm – 8:00pm (Race and Culture)

Breaking down the myth of “historical accuracy” meaning no PoC, and un-whitewashing history.

Zen Cho, Georgiana Jackson-Callen, Meg Jayanth, Jade Tebble

Only a Moment County, 10:00pm – 11:30pm (Entertainment)

Hosted by Paul Cornell, the popular quiz inspired by another popular quiz returns: Paul will guide his panellists through a myriad of subjects where they have to speak for a minute without deviation, repetition or pause.

I’m also arranging to have copies of Spirits Abroad and Cyberpunk: Malaysia to hawk at the con. These are a little tricky to get outside Malaysia, so if you’d like to get a signed copy for a v. reasonable price, watch this space!

Buy The Terracotta Bride

Read The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo

You can buy my historical romance novella THE PERILOUS LIFE OF JADE YEO as an ebook from Smashwords, Amazon, Amazon UK, and all the other geographical flavours of Amazon that sell ebooks. Or you can read it online for free here on my website. That works too!

Buy Cyberpunk: Malaysia

I edited CYBERPUNK: MALAYSIA, an anthology of short cyberpunk stories by Malaysian authors published by Buku Fixi. It's available in print (from Fixi in Malaysia and Amazon.com outside it) and ebook (Smashwords and Google Play).